Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
And then we started laughing. God, I loved the deep, rich sound of Knox’s laughter. It fit in all the crevices inside me and filled them up.
“Come here,” he said suddenly before walking to his workbench.
I followed. He pulled out one of the stools.
“Sit.”
“Yes, sir,” I teased, but I sat.
Knox began rummaging around, finding a small piece of wood, a knife, gloves. “Here.”
I looked at him, and then he was slipping goggles on my face. “What are we doing?”
“I’m going to teach you. Just something little.”
My heart melted into a ridiculous puddle of goo. Knox Wheeler would be the death of me.
He sat down, and began instructing me, where to start, how to move my hand, pulling it away from me when it got too close to my body. “Never toward yourself,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s probably smart.”
Once I got the hang of it, he said, “You keep going. I’ll watch.”
“Okay,” I replied, hoping I didn’t chop any fingers off and having no clue what I was actually doing or making.
“How did you end up out here?” he asked. “I mean, obviously your mom, but I remember that first night you said she didn’t know you were coming.”
“A man, of course. My boyfriend. We’d been dating about a year or so, and I walked in on him cheating on me. Such a typical fucking story. Makes me feel like a cliché. Anyway, found out he’d been fucking this guy—well, and others—the whole time, and some of my friends knew. No one thought it was important to tell me, apparently.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” I said truthfully. “Sure, at the time I was hurt and angry, but now that I have some space, I realized I didn’t love him. And if he hadn’t cheated, I wouldn’t be here. I’m liking here more than I thought I would. Here feels…right.”
I ventured a glance at him. Knox’s forehead was wrinkled, like he was in thought. He was so cute when he concentrated, his mouth tense, surrounded by that sexy beard of his.
“Yeah, here feels right to me too,” Knox replied.
My heart jumped.
“Havenwood, I mean. It has that effect on people.”
Because of course that was what he was talking about.
“Be careful. Not that direction. Here.” Knox’s hand was suddenly on top of mine, guiding me. “You want to keep the strokes going in the same direction. I know it doesn’t seem like it makes a difference, but it does.”
He kept his hand there, and I tried not to tremble, tried not to breathe wrong, so he wouldn’t see how much I loved the feel of his big, rough hand on mine. “I, um…think I got it.”
“You’re a natural.” He smiled.
“You have to say that because you’re my teacher,” I teased, and Knox chuckled.
“Why does that sound familiar?” He pulled his hand back, and I missed the touch instantly.
“Have you, um…been serious about anyone since the divorce? Dated?” Why, why, why had I asked that?
Knox shook his head. “A few dates here and there. Hookups, that kind of thing, but I haven’t been serious. It’s hard with kids involved, ya know? Probably even more now with Logan here. I don’t want something I do to hurt them. Plus, I don’t know if I want to get married again or anything. Carol and I are close. It wasn’t a messy divorce or anything. I just…don’t know if marriage is for me.”
“I get it. I don’t have any plans to get married. You can be serious about someone and committed to them without that.” I looked down at the tool in my hand. “Logan said Dale’s mom was flirty with you. Who knows, maybe you’ll change your mind.” Those words hurt to say more than they should have.
“She’s a nice woman, but I’m not interested in her.”
I turned to him, and he was close, Jesus, he was fucking close. Had he been that near to me the whole time, or had one of us moved? Both of us moved? “Good,” I replied, then wanted to snatch the word back. I had no business saying it, and I didn’t know why I did. The lines between my brain and my mouth seemed to be misfiring. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… I don’t know why I… I know we’re friends and that’s all…” I really needed to pick a sentence and go with it.
Knox closed his eyes, and I assumed this was when he was going to tell me I needed to go, or that he was straight and only wanted to be my friend. What he said was, “I felt weird…when you said you were supposed to meet with someone tonight.”
Blood was rushing through my ears. My heart was going crazy, my chest tight. Holy fuck. I was going to stroke out. “Why?” I managed to ask.
“I don’t know.” Knox’s voice sounded far off, full of questions and confusion.